ICANN adopted a new policy, under which domain names that match the names and abbreviations of international organizations would be protected. It is based on suggestions developed by the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) back in 2014. We are talking about domain names that match the names or abbreviations of the leading international and intergovernmental organizations as well as the International Olympic Committee and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Some of these names are hardly interesting for the domain business since few will consider registering, for example, europeanbankforreconstructionanddevelopment (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) as a domain. However, the policy also affects a big number of three and four-letter strings, which are in high demand. The classic example is the word “who”, which is very common, but at the same time serves as an abbreviation for the World Health Organization. According to the Domain Incite’s rough estimates, the new policy will affect about 1.5 million domain names altogether. On ICANN’s website there is a full list of strings affected by the new policy.
From August this year, registries of all domain zones (including “old” top-level domains, such as .COM) are required to reserve these domain names for corresponding organizations, without the permission of which the registration is impossible. However, in case some of these names were registered previously their owners will retain the right to renew registration and keep the domain with no limitations. But if the owner of such a domain removes it the domain name will automatically be added to the reserved list.
